Thermal imaging technique helps overcome a major problem for gravitational-wave astronomy

Gravitational-wave observatories like LIGO detect ripples in space-time from cosmic collisions, but a critical limitation has constrained their sensitivity: laser beams cause the mirrors to heat up and warp. Physics World reports that researchers at UC Riverside, led by Jonathan Richardson, have cracked this longstanding problem. They used commercially available thermal imaging cameras and a heat-flow model to precisely map where the mirrors distort, then applied an adaptive heating pattern to cancel those deformations out. No exotic technology required—just existing thermal cameras paired with LIGO's built-in sensors. Richardson says the breakthrough clears the path to million-watt-scale gravitational-wave observation. His team is now building this method into Cosmic Explorer, a next-generation detector with forty-kilometer arms designed to be ten times more sensitive than LIGO.

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